Mana Drain is not essential or inherent to Gems of War or a match 3 game or a fantastic universe.
It adds time to matches. A lot of time. Barrier and Silence are a distant second. [Perhaps because Silence is not so prevalent.]
It adds frustration.
It decreases fun.
The game would be better without Mana Drain and it certainly could not be worse.
Kill your darlings.
No, please keep the mana drain troops, and get in more mana drain troops. Love to use them, hurtful to get against, tactics to avoid them, unlucky sometimes, unlucky with everything sometimes…
No
10 character
No. We just need a Mana drain counter, and a handful of troops with this ability to balance it.
More than 1000 of my 1341 gameplay hours is from before mana drain became big on defense. Thanks to mana drain, i manage to cut down to only 5-6 hours per week of gow. I don’t need a reason to be back on the grind train. Keep the mana drain.
Mana Drain is fine, but it needs more counters, ideally both a trait (similar to Mana Shield) and a castable ability. Maybe add immunity to Mana Drain to either Barrier or Enchanted? The latter coming to mind because it’s an ability that continually grants mana and would make sense that it would block something from removing said mana.